Have been using Scapple on Mac for years without problems, currently running v1.50.1. Recently, though, while in the midst of working on a file, the text content of a note into which I have been entering text suddenly disappears. That is, the note border remains, but the contents have vanished. I frequently manually save my scapple files, but despite this, I can’t recover the missing content. The remaining note (ie. the border) behaves strangely in another way: after the text vanishes, I can’t select the note, and I can’t enter new text into it.
All the other notes in the file remain. I’ve had this occur on two different iMacs, one running OS 12.7.6 (Monterey) and one running v.13.7 Ventura.
Any ideas? Very frustrating.
This has cost me about 2 hours of work thus far
What I would do is open the .scap file in a plain-text editor (TextEdit for example), and search for a phrase you know to be in that note. If the text is actually in the file, but invisible, then it should show up in the raw XML file. You can then copy and paste it out, close and open the .scap file normally, delete the note, and paste the text into a new note.
If the problem comes back, it may be the text itself has an invisible character in it that is breaking Scapple, and it might be easier just to type it back in yourself from scratch. The Mac, for whatever reason, has a bad habit of inserting junk characters that can mess up software.
Thank you for response. I will try it.
Also, I am noticing that my Scapple version, 1.50.1 should probably be running on newer Mac OS’s than I am using (12.7.6and 13.7). I bought Scapple via the Apple App Store. Is there a way for me to regress to an earlier Scapple version in case that is causing the problem?
Unfortunately Apple does not allow you to install older versions for some reason. But this shouldn’t be a problem in your case, as Scapple runs on systems back to macOS 10.15, way older either of the ones you are using. The App Store wouldn’t even let you install the upgrade if it was actually incompatible.
I have been using Scapple frequently and extensively for many years–at least 5-6 years. This started happening only about 1 month ago. It is still happening. I have been able to reopen a misbehaving scapple file with TextEdit but a search for known text in the missing box yields nothing…the contents of the box have just disappeared.
Any other ideas?
I may not be understanding the scope of the problem then, as I thought it was confined to a single file, but you seem to be speaking much more broadly—this is happening across many files that have been edited over years?
If it is one file though, I would send a copy of it to tech support, so that we can try and repair it (even if the text cannot be recovered), and hopefully also see what went wrong so that whatever caused the problem can be fixed.
It only happens with the active file I am working on. Older saved files, when opened and simply viewed/perused, are not affected.
It is only in the field of the newest, active/in progress “note” in the current file that the behavior happens. In that note the contents I have been working on since initiating the note are the only contents affected.
When this happens again, I can save a copy that includes this weirdly acting note, and send it.
Should I do that?
We’ve fixed all of the problems like this that we know about, so if you’re still seeing something like that in the latest version, then we missed a condition. 100% of these cases must be solved with a sample file, because all we know is the symptom, and the symptom you described can be caused by millions of things.
So yes, save a copy that acts weird, send it to us, and we’ll take a look and see if it causes the same problems for us. If it does, it is a simple matter for the developer to put in debugging and see why it fails. As an aside, the sooner the better if you actually have a sample case right now. We’re trying to get an update out very soon, to fix some crashing bugs, and it would be nice to have your bug fixed in that too. But if you can’t, it’s okay, we’ll get it next time!